Scrap Happy: Scrapbooking Smart

Each Monday, I discuss my Scrap Happy project based on Gretchen Rubin’sThe Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun.
Over the past few weeks, I have written about remembering love. Today, the happiness task is aiming higher. The primary way one can aim high via their scrapbooking is by working smart. How does one work smart or scrapbook smart? For me, I like to make or take time for scrapbooking every day. Every day. That’s a bit overwhelming, right? Well, let’s think about what all is involved in scrapbooking. For me, scrapbooking involves:

1. Taking photos
2. Uploading and backing up photos
3. Editing photos
4. Ordering printed photos
5. Telling the story
6. Putting supplies away
7. Matching photos with paper and embellishments
8. Scrapbooking
9. Putting layouts in albums or printing digital scrapbook pages

Wow! Nine items. And I am probably forgetting some items. Of course, if you view scrapbooking as having to sit down and complete a page in one setting, doing that daily is overwhelming. Scrapbook in small bites. I do. I might spend ten minutes on one of these tasks one day and three hours on several tasks another day. I still do not do something scrapbook-related every day. I take a ton of photos, but I don’t even do that daily (though that is something I would like to change).
Notice I did not include shopping for scrapbook supplies (excluding ordering photos or digital layout). It is easy to get in the habit of shopping for scrapbook supplies, telling ourselves that we need this or that in order to create that wonderful layout we have in our head, and then never actually scrapbooking. When I worked in a scrapbook store, I used to buy pattern paper. A lot of pattern paper. I realized that I did not use a lot of the pattern paper. I finally decided to stop buying pattern paper (which was hard when you were seeing all the pretty new product near daily). I went for probably close to a year where I only bought a few sheets of pattern paper. I still shopped for scrapbook supplies but I focused more on what I actually need. This reduced the time I spent organizing my supplies (how often do you buy new supplies and just leave it in the bag until you are ready to scrapbook?). I suppose my takeaway from this post is that to aim higher and scrapbook smart, break it down into little pieces and spend less time shopping for scrapbook supplies.
Related Posts:

• Scrap Happy: A Happiness Project

Stephanie